—
One day in mid-February, my boss called me into his office. He told me I’d made a small mistake on last week’s show: I’d left in one plinky-plonky piece of instrumental music instead of swapping it out for another plinky-plonky piece he liked more. “You’re careless,” he told me. “You always do things like this. You don’t pay attention to detail. You have to step it up and move more slowly, or else…” He shook his head. Or else what? He’d fire me? I wasn’t even supposed to work on the last show. I took on production at the last minute because other people didn’t know how to use Pro Tools. And I’d been lead-producing show after show lately—a job that required weeks of intense, meticulous coordination of the entire staff. The powers that be had asked me to take on this exceptionally stressful role because everyone knew I was damn good at it—because I had such a relentless attention to detail. I had always pulled my rage away from his office, but this time, it returned as a tsunami, and I could not hold it back.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I snapped at him, and even though I knew he despised tears, I couldn’t stop a few from leaking out of my eyes. “Everything I do is wrong. You’re abusive, and you take me for granted. Everyone on this staff sees that you hate me. Multiple people on staff have told me that they pity me because they see the way you treat me. God, do you have any idea how humiliating that is? To be pitied by everyone here? Well, I’m tired of it. I don’t need it. I quit.”
“Let’s, uh, let’s slow down here,” he said, leaning back. He was floundering for once. “I don’t hate you, and if you have that impression…I’m sorry. I am sorry I was mean to you. It’s just that…I have a hard time trusting you because…I’m willing to admit that perhaps I…Well…maybe I created an impression of you when you first got here that you might’ve outgrown. It’s just, you struggled when you first came here. And from the minute you came to this show, you were just so…different…from the rest of the staff.”
“Why do you treat other producers better than me?” I asked him straight up.
He didn’t even pause. “Because they’re great reporters.”
Now it was my turn to recoil. My rage superseded my heartbreak just enough to hold back another round of tears. “I don’t know how I can work for someone who doesn’t respect me,” I managed. “I’m sorry. I quit.”
I walked back to my office and stared at it. It was so full of stuff. Vitamins, snacks, clothes, space heaters, blankets—I had truly made work my second home. Now I crammed whatever I could into a large box, and even though it was only two in the afternoon, I took it straight home and crawled into bed. “Different.” I was so different from the rest of the staff. What did that mean? How was I supposed to be?
Another boss called me that evening and begged me to come back. Told me my jerk boss had agreed to be nicer and was ready to apologize. I was talented and valuable—he was just a numbskull. Couldn’t I please give them one more chance? So I went to work the next day and the next. But every night, I’d dig through my drawers and fill my purse with my belongings, slowly emptying the office one lipstick at a time.
In mid-February, I made myself attend just one more company party, and I spent most of it standing in a corner listening. There they were, once again: the clinking glasses, the bright smiles, joy seeping out of the bar with a butter-yellow glow. The disconnect was painted in vibrant relief. Maybe other people were angry about the state of the world, but in real life, they were laughing about television shows. On Instagram, they were making muffins. They were remembering to call people back. Everyone was…generally okay. If I possessed the anxiety-and-depression combo meal everyone else had, then why was I the only one crying on the subway every morning? Why couldn’t I figure out how to be like everyone else? Why did the dread follow me, leaving a path of destruction everywhere I went?
* * *
—
On February 28, I learned the answer to all of those questions when I called Samantha for our therapy session.
CHAPTER 11
“Do you want to know your diagnosis?” Samantha had asked brightly, her face glowing like a moon on my screen. And when she said “complex PTSD,” she tossed it off so casually that I just shrugged in response—oh, okay. She wouldn’t have waited eight years if it was that important, right? How bad could it be?
So after our session, I googled it. I clicked on the Wikipedia page, then the Veterans Affairs website, and saw the list of symptoms: People with complex PTSD have trouble holding down jobs and maintaining relationships. People with complex PTSD are needy. People with complex PTSD see threats everywhere and are aggressive. They are more likely to be alcoholics, addicts, violent, impulsive, unpredictable.
Most of these symptoms rang true for me. But it was the hyper-specific ones that freaked me out, like the idea that C-PTSD patients spend their lives in “relentless search for a savior.” How could they have known about that? Somehow, this Wikipedia entry called it. Every time I met someone new who seemed wise and stable and kind, I wondered if they might be the answer to things, if they might be the new best friend who’d finally crack the code, the one who would make me feel loved. I thought this was a weird but very personal trait of mine. And this whole time it had been a medical symptom.
More than symptoms, these felt like accusations. The scientists and doctors might as well have written, People with complex PTSD are awful human beings.
Okay. But now you know, I tried to tell myself. Knowing is good. Now you can fix things. Healing always begins with a diagnosis.
But then again, so does dying. Oh God.
My fingers frantically jumped across the computer keys: “True story” + “complex ptsd.” I’ll find a story, I thought. I find stories for things like this all day.
“Celebrities with complex ptsd.” I wanted to know I wasn’t alone. “I healed from complex ptsd.” I wanted to know I was fixable. “Complex ptsd” + “happy now.” I wanted to see women like me who could hold down jobs and cook dinner and didn’t screw up their kids, women who adopt old incontinent dogs and have nice husbands and subscriptions to Real Simple, women who have survived catastrophe and morphed themselves into something selfless and lovable.
But there were no results for celebrities with complex PTSD. At least none that I could find. Instead, the internet told me about Barbra Streisand, who apparently has PTSD from forgetting the lyrics to a song in the middle of a show. The “true story” avenue didn’t fare much better. I found pleas from people struggling with C-PTSD on message boards, begging for solutions to their pain. There were only two results for “I healed from complex PTSD.” One was a broken link, and the other was a line in a weird old poetry blog.